Like the Rose
by Aiko Kitty Skywalker
Summary: After Anakin has become Darth Vader in the Clone Wars and Padmé has gone into hiding with her daughter Leia she feels her life is slipping. She is forced into the reflection over her love, her loss, and her strength. A very touching piece about love and


Hi there!

All right this story focuses from the POV of Padmé Naberrie Skywalker. She and Anakin have been married for some time after the adventures of Episode II (no spoilers from there in here) and now Anakin has left to fight in the battles of The Clone Wars. But when news returns of her of Anakin's transformation to the Dark Side and Padmé has given birth to her first children, she reflects on her life with Anakin, her love for her "Ani", the lover that she would never forget, yet never lose in her heart. A little bit of a tearjerker, yet an enlightening story about life, happiness, sacrifice and most importantly love.

The disclaimer is I do not own Star Wars so don't sue. I also do not own the song "Like a Rose" by B*Witched.

Please read and review.

**Like the Rose**

By Aiko "Kitty" Skywalker (aiko_kitty_skywalker@hotmail.com)

Every little word with every lesson learned

I think I know why hearts are made of stone

Every little pain fans a bitter flame

Nothing stops me loving you

As the days went by and time left me standing still, I still felt your presence alongside of me. As I felt the days fall short, my years go flying past and my senses numb all but to extinction, I knew that you still loved me. Like the beauty of an eruption or the tranquility of a brisk spring breaking into furious yet peaceful falls, that's how I've felt to be in your arms. Like the beauty of the rose in full bloom, losing a bud yet gaining a flower, that is our love.

I once doubted that our love could conquer all, I once believed in the fear of rejection, yet now as I stand alone within this universe, shivering in the darkness, feeling the presence of no one, I know that your love is still here alongside of me, that is what pushes me on.

Can't you see that we belong

Oh how I want it to be

So tell me do you feel the way I feel?

I've always wondered what pushed you over the edge, what made you leave me? I know you love me, yet when you walked away, you broke a promise you swore to keep, and for that, that alone I feel the breaking of a life within my fingers. I do not deny, our love is a life, no not a life, but two. As you walked away, I felt the souls inside of me, our love's first spawns, begin to break as though they were twigs within my fingers.

Yet I never spoke to you after that moment. I never told you what was happening to me, what I felt at that moment. I don't know if you wanted me to go after you, to chase you down, yet I knew I could not bring myself to do it. I did not want you to see me quiver in my fright, weep in my bitter remorse, so I refused the emotions, so I blocked them out.

Baby like the rose oh darling

You put colour in my life

Baby take my heart forever

Cause I don't want to be afraid

But now I know I should have. I should have fallen to my knees and kissed your hands, I should have clasped my hands and begged you not to go. Yet it took me no strength to keep from doing so, Ani I didn't want to. Why didn't I feel?

I guess my pride can't seem to bare it. I, Padmé Naberrie, full of pride yet full to the rim with love, felt no remorse, felt no tears flowing readily down my cheeks. Oh Ani was it my pride that held me back? Was it the danger? Was it my fear of being rejected? Ani you died in the Clone Wars, my Ani yes you did, I could have stopped you, oh yes my Ani I could have.

How could I have returned home that night? How could I have slept? Now I wonder how I did anything at all. How did I survive the carrying of our offspring, how did I survive their birth? How did I look upon our son's face and not break down in weeps of bitter discontentment of the memories? Why was I not afraid to hold him in my arms, why was I not afraid of his resemblance to you, why was I not afraid to let him go, why was I not afraid to keep him?

Turn another page, the story will never fade

Sleep with thoughts of you until daylight

When you're far away

Forever love will stay

Keep this loving feeling deep inside

When Obi Wan reported the news to me about you and the Dark Side I didn't want to weep, oh no my Ani I didn't want to weep. I did not want the sorrow, I did not want the remorse, oh Ani why didn't I want the remorse?

Oh Ani our love, our love is so beautiful yet deadly to me. Like the gorgeous fields of flowing golden tinges of dandy lions, the puffs of white clouds that float like cotton candy in the sky, that is our love, peaceful and tranquil in its many heights of splendor.

Yet through the times of now as I look back on our life together, I see the darkened skies, I hear the horrendous claps, more like bellows of the thunder, the flashes, no burning sensations of lightening. I see the pain, I see the fevered dreams that I felt myself mold to in my mind, yet as I search back into the past, I feel your arms encircle my waist. I can still feel you here with me, Ani, I still feel you here.

Can't you see that we belong

Oh how I want it to be

So tell me do you feel the way I feel?

Ani when I came into your guard before I knew of our love together, no I've always known of our love through dreams, but before our physical love grew to be the rose I see before me, the rose I linger upon, the petals I dance upon, I knew of the clouds, I saw the dreams. I watched in fear when sleep overwhelmed, I saw you, my love yes you, fall towards it all. Oh I saw you lead the clones, just as I had once, I saw you defeat them all oh yes Ani you did, yet I saw you, you gave in to it all. I watched you fall as the words lingered in the air, I saw you strike a figure cloaked by darkness, "Strike out of hatred and your transformation to the Dark Side shall be complete." I wanted to scream out to you to stop; yet I felt my voice frozen in time. I saw next the cloaked figure engulf the world in darkness as you struck, I saw a masked figure with a red light saber, I saw the burning heat of the lightening, I heard the bellows of thunder, the rain poor down upon my body, soaking me with the sweet, no the tears of the sky's anguish. I could see you, something inside of me told me, you were that masked figure. The heavy breathing, the dark mask over your eyes, it all told me it was you. You just looked at me, piercing into my soul, seeing as you always had into the window that gapes into my thoughts, my love, my life, my force, my soul. You were that figure Ani, I just never realized it until now. I was always told you were that dream yet I never listened to myself. I tried to scream to you, I tried to yell at you to turn back, I tried to plead to you, I tried to tell you I loved you, yet my mute state of dreams, my white gown that clung to myself, my swollen womb, my transparency of my night gown, the pains I felt in my heart, they seemed to hold me back. However then, then the most horrific of it all happened, my dream Ani, your face wasn't hidden anymore, it was a frightening sight that even the worst of nightmares would not dare touch, scratched and torn, pale as a ghost, yet I love your face. I never placed a name to you, yet I know now it was always you. That's you now Ani, that's you. Your face Ani, it should have scared me, it should have made me weep, it should have made me angry, it should have made me vengeful, yet my love, my Ani, it only made me love you more.

Baby like the rose oh darling

You put colour in my life

Baby take my heart forever

Cause I don't want to be afraid

Ani that dream was a vision, a vision of you and me, our future. How I wish now that I had taken on that vision as a warning and not let you walk away from me that day you left for the Clone Wars. I was silenced as you struck, I was silent as you walked away, and I was silent with the darkness. But now I know, I was silenced by my love for you, my love that told me you would be happy. I wanted you to be happy Ani that is why I did not weep, that was why I did not beg you to stay.

Now my poor Ani, my dearest Ani, be happy. All that I can do is pray from my force to yours that one day you will be happy, for my Ani, my dearest lovely Ani, I know that I am here in the memories of you and me, here in the love that we share. I ca not watch our daughter anymore, not from where I am anyways. Ani I feel myself retreating, I feel the force disintegrating within me. Ani I know I cannot remain, yet I know I cannot go, Ani what shall become of me? 

Oh oh oh

I feel my breath grow short and lacking, I feel myself dying, I know that I am dying Ani, oh Ani I am dying. Why am I dying Ani, why am I losing the battle for life?

Oh daughter Ani, she's in good hands, I left her as royalty in the court of Alderran, I know she will make you proud Ani, I really know she shall. I just hope one day you can know the truth, the truth of her, the truth of our son, the truth of me. The twins Ani, they are our love, our love that still remains. I know as long as they're alive that our love shall remain, no matter where we are, no matter how far we come apart, through death and decay, time stands alone for you and I, oh Ani yes it does.

Ani I am dying, why can't I feel the tears come crashing down, the remorse over my life all but lost, the remorse for the times I shall not spend with my children, no our children, the remorse over times I did not stop to help you, the times I did not plead for you to come back to me, to stay, the times where I was alone in the world, the times our children shall be alone, the time that we shall spend apart, the eternity that you and I have been apart, the vision I never took seriously, the days where I remained dry eyed? Oh Ani why do I not regret, why do I not feel the remorse? 

Baby like the rose oh darling

You put colour in my life

Baby take my heart forever

Cause your the colour in my life

However as I ask, I know I receive, your soul is telling me Ani, I know it is. For the bud that grows, that sprouts, the lives that we create, the love that still remains, are but what the rose needs to flourish. We are in full bloom Ani; we have not been before, we are now though Ani.

And I know our flower is eternal, as long as our children live, spawns of our children live, their offspring's offspring live, as long as our memory is held and our descendents still live, Ani our love shall not end, our rose shall not welter.

That is why I do not regret, oh Ani that is why. Long live the rose Ani long live the rose.

Oh like the rose

The End

How was that? Good? Bad? Any other comments on my writing story, the idea behind this story or any other comments you can think of you can tell me through a review or send me an e-mail at aiko_kitty_skywalker@hotmail.com.

May the force be with you!

Aiko "Kitty" Skywalker

A Heart at Midnight (www.geocities.com/aheartatmidnight): A website dedicated to the arts of poetry and writing, dedicated to my writings under the name of Kat and other famous writings and quotes from history.


End file.
